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Friday, April 10, 2009

[Yasmin_announcements] New criteria for new media academics

from jon ippolito

I know some folks on this list have already requested these guidelinesprivately, but now that Leonardo has published them you can refer yourpeer committee to their Winter 2009 issue. Kudos to Roger Malina andco. for nudging academia into the 21st century!

Leonardo publishes "New Criteria for New Media"

Academia's goal may be the free exchange of ideas, but up to now manyuniversities have been wary--if not downright dismissive--of theirprofessors using the Internet and other digital media to superchargethat exchange, especially in the arts and humanities. Peer reviewcommittees are supposed to assess a researcher's standing in thefield, but to date most have ignored reputations established byblogging, publishing DVDs, or contributing to email lists.

In a signal that some universities are warming to digital scholarship,however, the winter 2009 issue of MIT's Leonardo magazine--itself atraditional peer review journal, though known for experimenting withnetworked media--has published a feature on the changing criteria forexcellence in the Internet age. To make its point as concretely aspossible, the feature includes the recently approved promotion andtenure guidelines of the University of Maine's New Media Department,together with an argument for expanding recognition entitled "NewCriteria for New Media."

Rather than throw time-honored benchmarks for excellence out thewindow, "New Criteria for New Media" tries to extend them into the21st century. To supplement the "closed" peer review process familiarfrom traditional journals, U-Me's criteria recognize the value of the"open peer review" employed in recognition metrics such as ThoughtMeshand The Pool. As the name suggests, open peer review allowscontributions from any community member rather than a group ofexperts, and all reviews are public; when combined with an appropriaterecognition metric, the result is much faster evaluations thanpossible via the customary approach. "New Criteria for New Media" alsourges academic reviews to reward collaboration in new media research;valuable roles include conceptual architect, designer, engineer, oreven matchmaker (e.g., introducing two other researchers whosecollaboration results in a publication).

Because the University of Maine hopes other institutions will adoptthese criteria and adapt them to their own needs, it is releasing themunder a Creative Commons (CC-by) license. (Due to a misprint by MITPress, the Leonardo article highlights the authors' copyrights ratherthan the CC license; it's surprisingly hard to give things away in aprint economy!) The new criteria have already been sought after byindividual tenure candidates and cited in the Chronicle of HigherEducation. You can find them in Leonardo's winter 2009 issue (vol. 42no. 1) or online at these links:

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